each share of Starwood Hotels common stock. Lazard and Citigroup were
financial advisors to Starwood and Deutsche Bank Securities and Goldman
Sachs were Marriott’s financial advisors. Cravath, Swaine & Moore served
as legal counsel to Starwood and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher was Marriott’s
legal counsel.

The Starwood name was involved in yet another of last year’s megamergers.
Colony Starwood Homes, the single-family rental REIT shaped from the
merger of Starwood Waypoint Residential Trust and Colony American
Homes, created a REIT with an asset value of approximately $7.7 billion and
now represents the third-largest owner of single-family rentals. The entity
owns and manages more than 30,000 homes nationwide, 90% of which are
concentrated in the combined organization’s top 10 markets. The combined
company ranks third among institutional single-family rental owners.

No surprise here—the buyer behind another of the biggest mergers of 2016
was Blackstone Real Estate Partners VIII LP, which acquired BioMed Realty
Trust Inc. in a deal worth $8 billion. The deal, which closed in January 2016,
gave Blackstone more than 110 properties totaling over 18 million sf.

In July, an entity controlled by Brookfield Asset Management completed its $2.8-billion, all-cash acquisition of Rouse Properties Inc. As
part of the deal, Rouse shareholders received $18.25 per share for the deal,
which involved 35 locations across 21 states, representing nearly 24 million sf of retail space. BofA Merrill Lynch acted as financial advisor to the
special committee of the Rouse board; Sidley Austin LLP was the special
committee’s legal advisor; and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP was legal
counsel to Brookfield.

Next in line was the acquisition by DRA Advisors LLC and PGIM Real
Estate of Inland Real Estate Corp. The deal, valued at $2.3 billion including
the assumption of debt, created an entity known as IRC Retail Centers Inc.

Inland common shareholders received $10.60 in cash for each share theyown, and IRC stocks stopped trading on the NYSE. DRA obtained debt financ-ing from Wells Fargo and Bank of America as the initial Lenders. WellsFargo acted as administrative agent; BofA as a syndication agent; and WellsFargo, Merrill Lynch and Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. served as joint leadarrangers bookrunners. DRA also obtained debt financing from investmentfunds managed by an affiliate of Apollo Global Management LLC. BMOCapital MarketsCorp. and SilverPortal Capitalacted as financialadvisors andProskauer RoseLLP and BlankRome LLP were therespective legalcounsels to Inlandand DRA.

In the fall,

Cousins Properties
Inc. completed its
$2-billion merger
with Parkway
Properties, along
with the spin-off of
its Houston assets
into a separate
publicly traded company, Parkway Inc. The deal expanded Cousins’ portfolio to 41 assets totaling 15. 8 million sf, which the new entity, Parkway
Inc., held five office assets at its creation, comprising 19 buildings and
totaling approximately 8. 7 million rentable sf throughout Houston. In the
stock-for-stock merger, Parkway shareholders received 1.63 shares of
Cousins stock for each share of Parkway stock. Post spin-off, Cousins and
Parkway Properties shareholders now own approximately 52% and 48%,
respectively, of both companies.

In another all-stock merger later in the year, apartment REITs MAA and Post
Properties came together to create a company with a total market cap of some
$15 billion and an equity market cap of $11 billion. The new entity retained the
MAA name and trades under the existing ticker symbol MAA on the NYSE. The
deal, valued at $4 billion, combined two portfolios into a combined asset base
of approximately 105,000 units in 317 properties, located primarily across the
Southeast and Southwest. Citigroup acted as financial advisor, and Goodwin
Procter LLP and Bass, Berry & Sims were legal advisors to MAA. Post’s financial and legal advisors were JP Morgan and King & Spalding.

A $1.9 billion deal gave Harrison Street Real Estate Capital LLC control of
Campus Crest Communities Inc., taking the student housing REIT off the
public market for $7 per share in cash. The buyer, a longtime investor in student
housing, picked up Campus Crest after the latter firm went through a long and
rigorous strategic review process. The deal gave Harrison Street ownership
interests in 79 student housing properties with over 42,000 beds across North
America. Moelis & Co. and Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP served as
Campus Crest’s respective financial and legal advisors. Raymond James and
Associates Inc. was Harrison Street’s financial advisor and DLA Piper LLP US
was its legal advisor.

And for $1.4 billion, southern US-based multifamily REIT Landmark
Apartment Trust Inc. was picked up by Monument Partners LLC, an entity
owned by affiliates of Starwood Capital and Milestone Apartments REIT. The
all-cash deal, which included the assumption of existing debt, gave Landmark
shareholders $8.17 per share, and included some 70 properties consisting of
some 20,000 apartment units.

The W Union Square was one of the 15 properties
Anbang Insurance Group gained in its $6.5-billion purchase of Strateguc Hotels & Resorts from Blackstone.

The $7.7-billion merger of Colony American Homes and Starwood Waypoint
Residential Trust created the nation’s third-largest owner of single-family rentals.